Roadside Memorial

We used to live across from a man who watched our house every single day. Even worse, he was constantly leering at our kids. Anywhere else, you’d call the cops on him. 

But in Florida, you elect him to the Neighborhood Association board.

It was as if that nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched lived across the street. Every day, he doted on his manicured lawn and watched for us to break one of a thousand neighborhood rules. I’m pretty sure filing that report was the greatest joy of his week. He probably giggled as he typed.

Some might call him a “grumpy old man”, but age wasn’t his problem. Old age doesn’t make you mean, it only intensifies the person you already are. So if you’re kind and optimistic, you simply become more so with time. 

But if you’re bitter, you’ll metastasize into a full-blown curmudgeon by 65.

Thankfully, time works just as strong in the other direction. For example, last week I watched an older gentleman as he helped his wife out of the car. I hope I wasn’t like my creepy neighbor, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of them as I sat sipping my coffee. 

I noticed them first as the man opened his trunk. He lifted a wheelchair out of that trunk and set it on the side walk next to the passenger side door. He carefully locked the wheels in place so it wouldn’t roll when his wife sat down. He opened her door and lovingly guided her out of the car and over to the chair. 

He was careful not to rush her, and made sure she didn’t waver or make a misstep. It was the perfect picture of what a marriage should be toward the end of our years. As I watched I thought to myself, “That’s the man I want to be when I get older.” 

Coincidently, there’s a good chance I’ll get to replay that scene myself one day. And it’s all because of a stump on a side road in East Tennessee that serves as a memorial in our family…

Over 20 years ago, my wife had a terrible car wreck. We were living in East Tennessee where I worked at a church. My wife Dawn was driving home after the service one Sunday when she lost control of the car. She over-corrected and careened off the road into a tree at full speed. She was driving my daughter who was around 5, and my son who was a few months old. 

One other detail. She was pregnant.

I came upon the scene to see all three family members laying across someone’s front yard, with paramedics busily caring for them. I remember the chaos, the uncertainty of what to do. I remember the huge tree they hit, and the mark our car left on it. I remember our van, and how the middle front section had compacted in on my wife’s right leg. She didn’t even realize her ankle was crushed as she frantically tried to get to our kids. As she went to put weight on it, her leg collapsed under her.

An hour later I was pacing outside the emergency room, as teams of medical staff attended to my family. I was frantically trying to hold myself together, while inwardly wondering if my wife would ever walk again and if I was about to lose both my children and our unborn baby. Desperate prayers flashed across my mind, but I was unable to focus on anything. 

But everything changed when I saw the face of my pastor as he walked down the hall toward me. I remember how I buried my head in his shoulder as he hugged me. He didn’t say much, because he was too wise to through meaningless words into my fear. But he was there, and that meant everything to me.

The next week was spent in the hospital, going from one floor to the next to check on my wife and kids, all in separate rooms. My infant son was probably in the best condition, suffering only a broken foot. I held my daughter’s hand as she lay in children’s intensive care, her head wrapped and her face swollen. She had a hematoma on her brain, and they warned there could be serious complications. 

My wife was hooked up to machines in the maternity wing, as doctors tried to treat her while monitoring our unborn child. I spent every night there that week, rubbing her limbs as they ached, calling for the nurse, hopping from floor to floor.

Thankfully, the hematoma on my daughter’s brain went away without surgery, and the doctors determined my unborn daughter was unaffected by the trauma. However, my wife’s leg would never be the same. We entered into a long and painful recovery process at home, with the extra burden of taking care of our kids. I wasn’t sure how I would meet their needs and care for my wife. 

But in the midst of our darkest moment, God shown a spotlight on all our blessings.

First, I learned the power of a church. Church members I hardly knew started showing up to clean the house, mow the lawn and care for the kids. Bags full of food and fully-prepared meals were brought to our home every day without fail for more than a month. We felt the love of God’s family joining their arms around us to meet every challenge. To this day that experience defines for me what a real church can be and should be.

Second, my wife and I became bonded together as never before. We probably gained ten years’ worth of trust in each other after just one month’s time. Where my wife had served me so many times before, now I was the one serving her. I was able to prove my love to her in very tangible ways. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say there’s a bond that comes from emptying someone’s Porto-Potty every day!

To this day, her recovery period has been the defining moment of our marriage. If there was ever a chance we might drift apart, God drove a stake through its heart that month. We’ve never come close to doubting each other’s love since then. 

So what could have been a horrible tragedy became a sacred, God-breathed experience. What could have made us bitter and resentful about life did just the opposite. Now we love each other more than before, and we know every moment together is a gift from God!

The same things you think life sends to destroy you may also be the greatest vehicles of God’s blessings in your life. The only difference is in how you respond.

When I see my wife suffering today with continued pain in her leg, I suppose I could curse God for allowing it to happen. I could be bitter when I see her scars and the atrophy from an ankle that no longer bends.

Instead, I know I’m blessed to realize all I could have lost, and all I still have left!

So it makes me sad to hear people complain from minor disappointments. They think God owes them a perfect life untouched by trouble. They completely miss the fact those troubles bring great blessings as well.

The difference is found in you. Do you see life with faith or fatalism? Your outlook is the key.

The correct response to trials is not “why me” but “it’s my turn”. Problems are my turn to grow into the person I always hoped I’d become. Challenges are God’s refining fire that molds me into a much stronger man who shines in the midst of darkness. 

While I still grieve for my wife’s pain, I look forward to proving my love for her the rest of our lives. My trust in God tells me it was our most painful experiences that strengthened that love. So why be bitter at when God uses even the worst things to bless us?

We’ve all heard it said life can make you bitter or better. We’ve all heard it because it’s true. The only difference between that grumpy old man across the street and the sweet man caring helping his wife into her wheelchair is how they chose to respond to hardship.

Sometimes when we return to Tennessee, I drive by where Dawn had that accident. Over the years, I’ve looked for the mark our car left on that huge tree. I noticed one year the tree looked like it was dying. Then on the next trip it was gone! Someone had cut it down. 

All that was left was a stump.

Both my wife and that tree received the same trauma that day. But one of them endured it to thrive while the other one died. Same blow – different response.

So…which one will you choose to be – the survivor who blossomed into something beautiful, or the stump that an accident left behind?